There are many debates on oversteer and understeer and which on is
better. Basically, when I was trying to drop my times at monza in the
brabham, I started leaning towards an understeering setup. I made my setups
intentionally push not real bad but where it wasn't oversteering much. I
dropped my times down and learned a lot about driving deeper into the turns.
I think the best way to learn is using understeer and push it to the limits
because you can sense the limits a little better without completely loosing
a whole lap which helps your confidence and ego.
After getting to a point of where I wasn't improving (I was driving the
setup to its limit) I started dialing out the understeer and as I did this,
I got faster and faster. Once you can push the car to the limit, putting in
some oversteer helps you turn the car and at that time you have built up
your confidence and know the limits and now you can gradually push it to new
limits.
What I found helped me a lot (recently at spa) is to learn/test/play
around with the differential settings. I was driving the eagle at spa, it
pushes really bad there (at least with my setup). So at first I moved up
the clutches which will lock the wheels together more and make the car
oversteer on power a little more. After this didn't help all that I needed,
I started playing with the ramps. This is where you can really tweak your
setup. After you find a baseline chassis setup, not much can help you
there, try to balance the car with the diff.
Basically what I found is you start with 85/30 (first number power,
second coast). Basically this is the pushiest (most understeering) setup.
I don't know exactly what you are doing when you change the ramp angles and
all that. I do have a general idea as to what they do. With the power side
(85) if it is pushing when on the power, drop it down. The lower you go,
the more it will oversteer on power. With the coast angle, it is completely
opposite. Need more oversteer, raise it up to 45 or 60. I ended up on my
Eagle Spa setup at 60/60. This gave me a good balance and really helped in
the long turns where I could feed in some gas and it would turn it in but
not spin the car, just helps it turn.
Sorry for making such a long post but this is what I have learned and
wanted to share the knowledge. A lot of people don't know what to do with
the differential and I am just trying to give some people some insight. It
can really make a difference in your setup. About the first part, it is
probably common knowledge but it is a good way to test out the limits and
learn to drive at the limits in GPL. I forget how I got my really pushy
(read understeering) setups but I changed around some stuff which really
made them feel firm and consistent. If I remember then I'll post the info
here.
Jesse
FORS
[link lost in import]
I knew about the effect of raising the coast angle (helping turn in when
easing off the gas), but I never knew about the power side and always left
it at 85. Now that I think about it, on the long bends at Spa, I tend to
get a bit too much push when I apply power - a 60/60 might just do the trick
for me.
Thanks for the insight,
Brian
> There are many debates on oversteer and understeer and which on is
>better.
> What I found helped me a lot (recently at spa) is to learn/test/play
>around with the differential settings.
